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Chris HertzogFascinating to look at the last 100+ years of the U.S. relationship with China and how our national policy or approach towards China has changed so much over these years, how do we understand and explain this policy? How do our students come to understand this policy? Is China a friend or foe? Are they equal or someone we can use and abuse?
After the opium wars, the U.S. eventually gets their foot in the door, with the “Open Door Policy” but the Boxer Rebellion had already begun and the Boxers vehemently opposed foreign influence.
Then comes the 1911 revolution and the Nationalists, the U.S. has a friend in China again, and another foot in the door, but the Communists could cause problems, which they do until Japan invades.
The U.S. supports China against Japanese aggression, but at the end of the war, China goes back to war with itself and the U.S. backs the losing side with the Communists winning. Would Mao be a friend? 1949 Time magazine thought maybe so, but no. Communism and Mao are determined to be bad, not friends of the U.S., so U.S. policy again goes away from China, until 1972 and President Nixon declares China is ok again. So what is U.S. foreign policy towards China?
Our students can look at the back of their cell phones and see that they are made in China, but how did this all happen? Given this up and down relationship over the last 100 years and the communist government still in power, are they are friends? They make most of our products, but are they are friends? Aren’t they communists? Isn’t the U.S. fundamentally opposed and against communism? Then why do they make our products?
This is good question for our class discussions. Clay brought this up several times tonight, that while modern China is communist, it is like what cold war warrior Ronald Reagan said, it is not a communism he recognized. This is a complex story, so important for our students to ponder the hows and whys of all this, where we came from and where we are today… and where we are headed tomorrow.
Chris HertzogWell my card is not terribly subtle, though the translation is fun; "Perfom late-marry and family planning for doing revolution." I actually use some similar pictures in class looking at the Cultural Revolution, but this one I have not seen before. The ones I have are with the father/ husband figure, mom and young girl. I personally have always wondered what is the deeper/ cultural meaning for putting in the young daughter. I always thought or understood that Chinese traditional culture valued boys, not girls. Perhaps there is my answer. Is the revolutionary government promoting a new ideal? Regardless, dad is grabbing his wrench for work, with his bayoneted Kalashinkov over his shoulder (nice touch for the family portrait) and mom is carrying her pick axe and the daughter is reading, what appears to be Mao's Little Red Book, but with a white cover. Perhaps a newer child version? But the message is clear. Build your career, help the nation, establish yourself, smile, be happy and then have one child. Plan your family for the revolutionary cause. Looks like this is from the late 1960s as the violent aspect of the revolution has calmed and people who participated are now looking to transition from fighting the "olds" to becoming old themselves and building a family.
Chris HertzogGreat point Rick and amnesia seems to be contagious. Embarrassing moments are hard to look at, especially when we immortalize or put our own heroes or leaders on a pedestal of infallibility If we do not continually revisit our own history and ask questions, we will or do have the same issue. Liked Clay's talk on the "Long March" bridge crossing. Wow, a made up story of a heroic crossing and glorious victory? Sounds like we all can be guilty of this. I think we do need to ask questions, investigate and question what we are told. The recent series by Ken Burns on the Vietnam War reminds me on how in your face and visual that war was for the U.S public and yet there were still things that were kept in secret like Laos and Cambodia invasions. Clay mentioned a few areas now, Niger, Iraq and Afghanistan and examples to us today that are not too far off from a Tiananmen Square. Admission of mistakes and failures is not easy, but that is history. I think we are in a stage right now that as teachers we can clearly state to our students that things can be taken differently or seen from a different point of view, but just because you do not like something or agree with it can you just ignore it, make it go away or call it fake news and dismiss it. I think students today are looking for the truth and not just a line.
Chris HertzogReally like the use of political cartoons. Clay's use of cartoons today are a powerful reminder to me on how you can grab attention and get students engaged. How other cultures, groups and political parties portray each other through cartoons is great way for students to see the purpose, perspective and tone of these propoganda pieces. And that is the great tool for us as educators. Students often think cartoons are just that, cartoons. But as they look deeper and look for the hidden meanings they discover the artist's or cartoonist's intentions. Even the ones that Clay used today that were not in English, they can be figured out, or at least explored for propoganda like meanings. Even if our students are familiar with cartoons from American culture or our local publications, looking at foreign or historical cartoons gives a different perspective and looking at Chinese cartoons of Amercian leaders and culture can allow them to look at their home culture from another perspective, that perhaps they have not considered before. "How do others see us?"
Chris HertzogGood question on who invented gun powder and who had invented the cannon. The old one about the Chinese inventing gunpowder for religious ceremony and the Europeans finally making it into the killing machine we all have today has been thrown out there for some time and even shows up still, someone is still promoting this storyline.
Recent historical articles and discussion has a bit more of a complex story. Like Clay said, the Song and the Tang were using cannons and gunpowder in battle and then it traveled along the Silk Roads, made it into the Islamic Abbasid Empire and used by Muslim armies in Spain and at Constantinople and of course very successfully by the Mongols.
Finally it makes it into Euorpe and is used by a Swiss army attacking an Italian town, and soon every European kingdom wants it. What recent research has pointed out is that the European development was tied to the church bell bronze casting industry that was already going and the access to coal and copper mines that allowed them to further the casting of bronze cannons. So bell makers quickly became cannon makers. Not sure how superior that is, but for a long time it was the story that the Europeans took what the Chinese had no idea about and made it useful.
http://www.themcs.org/weaponry/cannon/cannon.htm
This is a great discussion to have with our students. Who gets to write this history? Who gets to say who is superior? And why is weapons technology equated with cultural superiority?
Chris HertzogI think the self-strenghthening made the strongest case for solving China's big challenges and "Make China Great Again!" If we just focus on our borders, bring back the jobs and industry and get back to the good old ways and good old days, everything will be alright again. Right? Well, I guess China's history does not show this.
We may have done well in the debate in class, but I think we lost the war. Our side simply did not offer any serious long term answers in dealing with China's deepr underlying problems. We just wanted to fix the externals and surface superficial issues and think that would eventually deal with the internal and historical economic, social and cultural issues. You know, go back to the good old days when everything was working properly and all the Chinese knew what to do and just did it. Sound familiar?
Well, this was a good reminder of how these kind of exercises can be great learning tools for our students in getting into the roles and really thinking through the material and how it would affect them as people in that time. Great way for kids today to experience something rather than reading or hearing about it.
Chris HertzogFoot binding is an attention grabbing topic for students, but I appreciated Daniel's caution, that as teachers, we need to be careful about letting our students think that this practice was "what the Chinese did to their girls". It did happen, and is a reality, but not necessarily as wide spread as we way project to our students, or may be the only thing they rememeber from this time period and culture. I always try to get remind students that it is easy to judge the past or people in the past as easy as it is to look at another culture or ethnic group and to characterize or stereotype them. Kids (and us) do that very well as it is, but as I teach History, I want my students to put it in context. Do we do similar things in our culture, or our we blind to our peculiarities?
Chris HertzogI appreciated the reminder that charts and graphs can bring a great understanding and bring about deeper thinking or deeper reflection on a given topic or subject. I want to incorporate more in my class and lectures. With projectors and access to the internet we can find and project just about any subject area. Growth vs. Development is a great way to make students think in a different manner, it got us to consider multiple aspects of Chinese society, economics and transition to industrialism. Sometimes we, and our students can just think, "Well industrialization happened." Or, "The just industrialized their society." It is always more complex than we like to think.
I have appreciated the other charts used such as the ship tonnage, economic output, populations. Each tell a story on their own and are great tools to use in the classroom for our students to explore and work through complex historical events.
Chris HertzogAgreed, his film and discussion makes you really consider how you approach "communism" or collective bargaining, worker rights and human rights in a communist land. Wait a second, I grew up and was taught that all the communist regimes were bad and had to be completely over thrown in revolution. Perhaps not. So many of the workers in China are intetionally using or willing to work with the Communist Party to get their rights and are not trying to throw the whole system out, but to hold it accountable to what is says it should be doing. This is another learning lesson for me to use with my students to not put a system, people or idea in a neat box, where it can't get out. To pre-determine how people should behave or act in a given system does not let the story play out, or it may play out in a way that we are not familiar with, but that is history... its messy.
Chris HertzogCollective bargaining, social justice and workers rights; organized labor and bargaining, not revolution. We assume democracy will deliver, but there is Walmart within a democratic society. Enough said there. Han Dongfang brings up a great of information on the workers, their struggle and their fight for basic rights as human beings. Teaching through history, we hit many of these topics in U.S. or World History to connect a film like this to. Many examples come to mind immediately; 18th-19th century Britain, France and Germany. In the U.S. 1800 industrialization periods, child labor, strikes continuing into 1900s, 1920s, 1940-50s with different groups and immigrants, many of course were Chinese. Now we see into China and get a real clear picture of the abuses and human rights and worker crisis is happening, and it is filling our shelves. Change did come to Euorpe, change comes to U.S. and now it is China's time. Han Dongfang paints a dark picture, but looks back on the history of Europe and the US and paints a picture of hope, or at least, as each of those went through change, so can China. I hope to show that to my students.
Chris HertzogGreat comments and thoughts from everyone on this, made me think about my own teaching. This was a very stimuating lecture and facincating book. I even appreciated Prof. Kurashige's explanation of how he came to write this book and how he researched it, finding some of his own preconceived concepts challenged, and other historical narratives challenged. The focus on Rowell was very personal for me hearing that he started his newspaper career in Fresno and was a proponent of the anti-Chinese movement in the San Joaquin Valley, where I teach now, but then shifted and changed his views to the point that he becomes a proponent of Asian rights in California and the United States. Education does change peoples' views, very encouraging to hear. Obviously, we all know very well that racism has not gone away and that it is still certainly apart of all of our communities, unfortunately, still in the San Joaquin, but this is an example of how we can help students to see how one person can change and help bring change to others. We all need to be open to challengeing our assumptions.
But also it is a reminder for me that history and life itself is complex. I talked a little with Prof. Kurashige about Bakersfield and Fresno and the Asian communites and the research he has done. Very interesting and personal stories of people and families who kept going and also a narrative of those who, like Rowell stood up and said, "No, I am not going along with this ignorance." We even talked briefly on Pres Theodore Roosevelt and his play nationally on all this and just what a complicated figure he was. There is something to love and hate for everyone there, but I think this kind of analysis and reflection helps us connect our students to an ever increasingly complex world where 'news' and 'history' gets challenged all the time and our students wonder what is trustworthy? What is believable? There is certainly racism, ethnocentrism, sexism and such that we need to confront but in doing so we also need to be careful of the same generlizations that those beliefs stem from. Thank you Prof. Kurashige for making me consider my own.
Chris HertzogYes I agree that this lecture reminds us as teachers, especially in history, to not paint a simple generalized narrative for our students, but for us and them to dig deeper and look into the complexities of these people and their shifting beliefs. I do want to use Prof. Kurashige's materials and approach to also make sure I do my 'homework' on the subjects I cover to allow for new research or just let the people we study be themselves and for me to not put them into a 'this' or 'that' corner. Let a newspaper editor change his opinions, let a president shift in their policy, or let a group of people go from being the 'bad' guys or the 'good' guys to being who they are. I think if we look at our own transformations as teachers, we can see people do change, grow and apply a paradigm shift to their lives or belief systems. That is certainly what I hope for in my own students' lives and why a course like this is helpful for us all.
Chris HertzogHere is a great resource for looking at the divide between North and South Korea, but also a great tool for students to see the North Koreans as humans, or in this case, young students just trying to make it through teen age years and do the right things in school, at home and for their country.
This documentary is from 2004, but it gives a close up view of life in North Korea following two school girls preparing for the 'Mass Games'. Prof. Jung-Kim talked a bit about these games in her presentation and about the holidays celebrated in the North. This program was done by a British film crew that follows these girls throughout the year leading up to the Mass Games.
If you have not seen anything on the Mass Games, it is incredible. But for my students, this blows them away. It is really visually incredible. But the film also gets into the issue of indoctrination as well as stereotypes and what is propaganda and what is reality. But the cool thing the filmakers do is through it back on us, in the U.S. or Europe or where ever. What in your culture and society is propaganda, or do we notice it ourselves? It is really easy to see North Korea as a bad, brain washed society, but are we as well? At the end of this film, you see two girls that are just like us, or at least my students have always seen two teenagers that are not much different than they are. They have the same dreams, fears, struggles etc.
They even have a hard time waking up and getting to school on time. This film could be definitely shown in Jr High or High School, but even sections could be shown in Elementary. There is nothing graphic, but it is subtitled for the Korean girls conversations.
Chris HertzogProfessor Jung-Kim gave another great look and overview of Korea (North & South) following the war, and I appreciated her very honest about take on the situation with the North... even an a Prof. of Korean history, she admits, we just do not know that much, and it can be dangerous to make assumptions or get wrapped up in conspiracies. I think as educators in elementary, junior high or high school we need to be as cautious. Even with the experts, there is still some guessing going on.
She did show and talk about many of the things we do know about the North, their trade deals with China, their on going food and resource issues and their desire to be recognized as a legitimate nation state, wth a leader who was educated in Europe. I appreciated Dr. Jung-Kim's approach in saying that they are people, they are Koreans, with families still on both sides of the border and still connected. I think the stories and the readings as well as her presentation helps us see them as humans, not just some "axis of evil" and that is what we need to communicate to our students.
Chris HertzogI very much enjoyed and learned from Prof. Yamashita in both of his lectures/ presentations. Not only the content and the use of photos, personal and historical, the use of diaries and primary sources, the use of maps and figures, but also how he started each section with a graphic organizer on the direction or structure of the lecture. The circle maps or thought bubbles that he used to begin each section is a great idea in sharing the smaller to larger picture or larger to smaller picture of a situation, time period or historical development. I can see how my visual learner students would appreciate this kind of 'lecture map' so they could see the larger issues, but also how they developed or where they came from. I could also see them doing the same kind of strategy in note taking from a text or primary source to organize a complex situation or historical development. Thank you for the ideas!
